Enhancement station?

What is the purpose of the enhancement stations?
AFAIK you can use them to upgrade your custom gear with mods etc. But that can be done everywhere, just shiftclick the item.
Is it so that on launch you could not shiftclick, and using the station was the only place you could do that. And later they introduce the shiftclick and never removed the stations to avoid confusion?

They were useful during beta before the ability to shift click was in. Shift click was an addition to the game not originally planned. I have heard some people say it is cheaper to remove mods when using the stations, though I have not verified this myself. It IS a little easier when using them when you have a lot to do though. I think they may also have plans to make them useful for something else, not sure what though. If they don't, it is pretty low priority to remove them, as there are other broken things to be working on.

In the beta you used to only be able to change mods and stuff in those stations, but they later made it possible without the stations. They just haven't removed the stations I guess.

Yep, just a hold over from Beta.

Sir Robin, the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot.
Who had nearly fought the Dragon of Angnor.
Who had almost stood up to the vicious Chicken of Bristol.
And who had personally wet himself, at the Battle of Badon Hill.

It is probably just an oversight or the fact that it would take more resources to remove them. Kind of like the books near inscription vendors you had to use to change glyphs (in WoW). They're no longer needed but still in the game.

What is the purpose of the enhancement stations?
AFAIK you can use them to upgrade your custom gear with mods etc. But that can be done everywhere, just shiftclick the item.
Is it so that on launch you could not shiftclick, and using the station was the only place you could do that. And later they introduce the shiftclick and never removed the stations to avoid confusion?

Originally, in beta, you had to use the stations to upgrade your mods. That requirement was taken out. The stations remain for no reason whatsoever other than "lazy development team".

Lazy or "We have other things more important to worry about than removing a dozen useless enhancement stations"?

Uhh ... yeah, I would agree with you, if they weren't absolutely *needless* since October beta (or earlier). If you cannot manage your time to get in a fix within 5 months, you are a terrible worker, or a terrible project manager, or both.

Uhh ... yeah, I would agree with you, if they weren't absolutely *needless* since October beta (or earlier). If you cannot manage your time to get in a fix within 5 months, you are a terrible worker, or a terrible project manager, or both.

Except for the fact that they've stated they would like to use them in the future. Terrible project managers and designers remove something only to have to add it in again, effectively making double work for themselves.

One of the Dev's indicated they had additional plans for them and that's why they're still in, although no details were given.

This.

That's why you still see them around in new places in 1.2 as well. They keep adding them around because they have plans for them at some point, but we have no real idea what, because they haven't said more than that.